Fly Fishing Outside the Box: Innovative Techniques & Emerging Heresies for Modern Anglers | Perfect for Streams, Rivers & Wilderness Adventures

During the past 125 years a few essential books have appeared that most significantly advanced our understanding of the feeding behavior of trout and how that behavior relates to the design of the flies we fish. The primary early texts included dry-fly father-figure Frederic Halford's second book,"Dry-Fly Fishing, Theory and Practice" (1889); George LaBranche's (the only American in this early group) "The Dry Fly and Fast Water" (1914); J.C. Mottram's amazingly prescient "Fly Fishing: Some New Arts and Mysteries" (1915); G.E.M. Skues' eloquent and penetrating "The Way of a Trout with a Fly" (1921), and Col. E.W. Harding's scientifically rigorous "The Flyfisher & the Trout's Point of View" (1931). It is disappointing that so few American fly fishers bother to find their way to these theoretical classics, because they form the foundation of much of what we modern fly fishers do. Later books that been well received and recognized as heirs of this tradition include Brian Clarke and John Goddard's "The Trout and the Fly" (1980), and more books by Americans: Vincent Marinaro's "A Modern Dry Fly Code" (1950) and "In the Ring of the Rise" (1976); Datus Proper's "What the Trout Said" (1982); and Paul Schullery's "The Rise" (2006, which is too recent to know if this one will last). Readers who have followed this subject will no doubt have other titles they would nominate for the list, but these titles are a good start.It is especially a good start because now we have Peter Hayes' beautifully produced "Fly Fishing Outside the Box," which picks up the energetic dialogues, debates, and outright disagreements offered by the authors listed above and moves the whole enterprise of fly-fishing theory along on many fronts. This wide-ranging, stimulating, and iconoclastic book, as entertaining as it is provocative, offers a respectful review of the best (and worst) thinking of Hayes' many predecessors. He takes on traditional (Both Halfordian and Catskill-style) dry-fly design, which at least since Marinaro's time a few people have taken to task for flaws of almost mythic proportions. He addresses some perplexing and almost universally ignored questions, such as "Which way do natural duns face as they float downstream?" and "Do our imitations face that way?" and "What do trout make of the leader that they can see clearly attached to every fly we cast to them?" He reconsiders tippets, leaders, nymphs, presentation issues, the tricky physics of the surface film, the surprisingly important heritage of Tenkara-type fishing, and many other matters of interest. Thinking fishermen, especially those with a fine eye for the longstanding theories behind modern fly design and trout natural history, will find much here to interest, surprise, and perhaps even annoy them; which is as it should be in a book about something as quirky and bewildering as fly-fishing.Most of Hayes' stories and examples take place on British streams, but you would be foolish to let that put you off or make you think these things don't apply to your fishing. Remember that when Pennsylvania limestone-stream fisherman Marinaro published his masterpiece "A Modern Dry-Fly Code" in 1950, his most meaningful sources of information and inspiration were those earlier British writers before him. Trout are trout and streams are streams, whether they flow through a Wyoming sagebrush flat or a Hampshire water meadow.REVIEWER'S DISCLAIMER: I've read all the books I've mentioned. I have not met Mr. Hayes, but at his request I did read the manuscript for him prior to its publication, which is how I came to hold such a high opinion of it.